Google Classroom: Turning in Group Work

Currently Google Classroom does not have a feature for group work. Here is my work around.

Create a Spreadsheet

I use Google Sheets to have students indicate who is in their group. Alternatively, when I assign students to groups, I will list out their names on a Google spreadsheet also.

Google Classroom makes it easy to share the spreadsheet. Attach a Google Sheets file from Google Drive and set it as “Students can edit file” if they choose their own groups or “Students can view file” if you have assigned the groups.

Suggestion to have the first column say “Group Leader” to indicate which student is going to take responsibility for the group work documents.

Tip from Alice

I number all of my assignments to make it easy to keep track of them in the gradebook. This also creates a nice file structure in the Google Classroom folder in my Google Drive. Click Here for my blog post on this.

In addition to numbering the assignments, I also start any documents students will be using in connection with this assignment with the same assignment number. This makes it clear for the teacher and the students which documents go with with assignment. This is particularly helpful when an assignment has multiple documents.

Attach Template

Attach the template or graphic organizer with a status of “Make a copy for each student.” This ensures that the students work is shared with the teacher and is in the assignment folder in Google Drive.

This creates a copy for each student, not for each group.

Group Leader

The group leader will need to open the group work document and click on the blue share button. The group leader will add the group members to the document to allow them to edit.

The group leader will also need to modify the document title to add the names of the group members to the end of the document title.

Group Members

In Google Classroom the other group members will need to click on “OPEN” and click on the X on the right hand side of the attached documents.

Turning In

Once the group work is completed, the group leader will “TURN IN” the document to Google Classroom.

The other group members will go into Google Classroom and click on “MARK AS DONE.”

I wanted the non-team leaders to copy the link in the address bar on the file they are working on. Click ADD and paste the link. This would allow them an easy way to find the file to update/correct the project at anytime. But, Google gives an error message when the student tries to past in the link. Any suggestions? Am I doing something wrong or is this not possible?